I am writing to you under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to request the following information:

The number of active Lancashire Police Informants on the records over the last 5 years (by year)

How much money has been paid to Informants over the last 5 years.(by year)

Where does this money come from.

Who authorises how much money is given to any specific Informant.

What are the guidelines for providing protection to informants or reducing sentences.

If it is not possible to provide the information requested due to the information exceeding the cost of compliance limits identified in Section 12, please provide advice and assistance, under your Section 16 obligations, as to how I can refine my request to be included in the scope of the Act. In any case, if you can identify ways that my request could be refined please provide further advice and assistance to indicate this.

I look forward to your response within 20 working days, as stipulated by the Act.

If you have any queries please don’t hesitate to contact me via email and I will be happy to clarify what I am asking for.

Yours faithfully, Paul “

Lancashire police REFUSED to supply the information saying it was vexatious!

The ICO provided me with this information:

“It may also be helpful to explain that, section 14(1) of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) can only be applied to the request itself, not the individual who submitted it.”

What this means is, for Lancashire police to refuse this specific Freedom of Information Request, the request itself MUST be vexatious, they cannot refuse to give this information to me, because it is me. So, if the FOI request I made was made by any other person, Lancashire police have to refuse based on the same reasoning.

Lancashire police have confirmed though that it was refused because it was made by me. This is evident as they have confirmed in writing that the same request was made by another person and that Lancashire police believe this other persons request is linked to mine. They have inferred that this other persons request will therefore be refused. They are not saying the request is vexatious, they are trying to say it is vexatious only because I am requesting it.

The actual reason Lancashire police are blocking this is because they are trying to block my access to information in an attempt to control my freedom of speech, which is a protect right and has been challenged within the FOI response I have made here.